THE POISON GARDEN website

Pontifications on Poison

Being some ramblings on events associated with poisonous plants.

Friday 12th July 2013
‘Is That Khat Dead?’

I make no apology for returning to the subject
of
Catha edulis, khat, because my fear is that the issue of
scheduling it under the Misuse of Drugs Act will fade from the
mainstream media until, in a year or so, someone decides to
write a story about the increased unemployment in the Somali
community in the UK or the effect on farmers in Kenya whose
livelihood was removed with no chance to find alternative crops
or the criminal gangs that have taken the place of tax-paying
traders.

Because I was having a lot of trouble, on
Saturday, producing my video about the ban on Catha edulis,
khat, (I was using free software supplied with my PC that turned
out to be worth every penny) I missed the obvious title choice
that would enable me to do a bit of shameless promotion of
my book. Luckily, YouTube allows for title changes so I went
back and renamed it. You can see it
here.

I haven’t heard anything from the Labour leadership since May’s
announcement but, given that the previous Labour government
agreed with the ACMD that there was no need to schedule the
plant, I think it is fair to assume that welcoming the ban is
not official Labour policy. It seems to me that this could be
those with a religious agenda applying that agenda to politics.

There have, though, been interesting stories. The only problem I
have with
this story
about what happened to a British man who tried to smuggle khat
into the USA is that it doesn’t say when the events described
took place so it would be wrong to suggest that it is evidence
that smuggling from the UK to the USA is not a common practice
currently.

Leaves cut from my khat plants

Today, the Department for Health issued a
press release
about its plan for plain packaging of tobacco products. This
said it had been decided to wait to see what happened in
Australia where this had been introduced because the government
did not feel there was enough evidence to proceed.

I immediately contrasted this with the situation with khat where
the ministerial statement acknowledged that there was little
evidence of harm but khat was going to be scheduled anyway.

I tweeted;

UK government;

Plain packs 'Not enough evidence - we wait'

#khat 'Not enough evidence - we act'

And seem to have a struck a chord because, at
the time of writing, there had been more Retweets of that comment
than any other Tweet I've written.

My father told me not to lie because it was difficult to
maintain the consistency to avoid lies being discovered. Today,
I know exactly what he meant. I wonder when the government will
come to understand this.

Screencap from 'Is That Khat Dead?'

On the subject of plain packaging, Diane Abbott MP asked an
emergency question in the House of Commons about the
announcement. The
Hansard transcript
records The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health,
Anna Soubry, denying that the government has decided not to
proceed with plain packaging claiming instead that it has just
delayed implementation.

When asked about whether her department will publish an estimate
of lives lost as a result of the delay once it does decide to
proceed, Ms Soubry resorts to the old trick of asking why
previous governments have not implemented this policy.

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